


Ribbons of Fabric and Flame

by EvieNyx



Series: Backstage AU [3]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Episode: s02e08 The Chase, Gen, Zuko meets the Gaang, and azula sees her brother again, and it turns out that ribbons are surprisingly effective weapons, backstage au, just make sure to add a bit of existential crisis in with it, theater kid!zuko
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-16
Updated: 2020-09-16
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:11:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,729
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26490163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EvieNyx/pseuds/EvieNyx
Summary: Sokka just wanted to get some sleep, but instead he got a firebender who made blue flames and another one who apparently just threw ribbons at people.
Relationships: Azula & The Gaang (Avatar), Azula & Zuko (Avatar), Iroh & Zuko (Avatar), The Gaang & Zuko (Avatar), Zuko & Ember Island Players
Series: Backstage AU [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1756543
Comments: 63
Kudos: 630





	Ribbons of Fabric and Flame

**Author's Note:**

> [Tumblr](https://evienyx.tumblr.com)
> 
> Will I be posting a lot of this AU out of chronological order? Yes, yes I will. Is that just because I wanna write whatever I have specific inspiration for rather than waiting? Who's to say?
> 
> I don't know what it was about this one. Like, I don't know why, but I spent literal days just trying to figure out whose perspective I wanted this to be in. I chose Sokka, because I love him to death, but I wouldn't be surprised if a Zuko one was made at one point or another.
> 
> Anyway, hope you enjoy!

Last night, Sokka had wanted nothing more than for Katara and Toph to shut up so he could actually get some  _ sleep _ , but apparently he had done something to anger the universe, because now they were being chased by those three girls from Omashu, none of them had slept a wink, and Katara and Toph were  _ still fighting _ .

Or, at least, they  _ had _ been before Toph had almost stormed off and Sokka had barely managed to convince her to stay by imparting a bit of Iroh-wisdom that the old man had once shared. Normally, Sokka would be rather proud of himself, but at the moment the only thing his mind wanted to focus on was the idea of just laying down on the ground and not moving for four days straight.

Of course, the universe still had some anger left, apparently, because even after Sokka, Katara, and Toph had beaten Knife Girl and Girl-Who-Punches-People-And-Makes-Them-Turn-Gooey, his sister, in her infinite wisdom, reminded him that Aang was still fighting Crazy-Blue-Fire-Lady.

Oh, Tui and La, it was times like these that Sokka  _ really wished _ Iroh was still here. 

Stupid  _ Zhao _ .

Still, they piled on Appa and set off in the direction that Aang had flown.

The abandoned town was the only interesting thing around for miles, so Sokka would have said they should check there anyway, even if there hadn’t been blue fire in the streets that gave away precisely where the fight was going on.

Katara veered Appa down onto a cliff as Crazy-Blue-Fire-Lady followed Aang into the depths of a crumbling building. Toph earthbent a slab of rock to bring them into the main part of the town and Katara hopped off as the building Aang was in caught fire. A moment later, Sokka’s sister scrambled away Crazy-Blue-Fire-Lady emerged, her eyes flashing, a flame in her palm. Sokka intercepted her and swung his club. She ducked under him and leaped off the front of the house, only to trip as a rock popped up under her foot. 

Toph stomped her foot and shoved her hand forward and Crazy-Blue-Fire-Lady was suddenly covered in slabs of rock up to her neck.

As Aang took a moment to catch his breath and Katara coaxed a bit of water into him, Sokka took a step forward, pointing his club in what he  _ hoped _ was a menacing way. “Who are you?”

Crazy-Blue-Fire-Lady smirked. “Oh, come now. I’m sure someone mentioned it once… Maybe back in Omashu? You’d have to tell me.”

There was a beat before Katara said, “When we were trading for Bumi… the girl with the knives called you ‘Princess Azula.’”

Sokka didn’t like the gleam in  _ Princess Azula’s _ eyes.

He heard Toph shifting behind him.

“Why is the Princess of the Fire Nation hunting us?” Sokka asked.

“I was bored,” she shrugged, her smile turning a bit amused. The glint in her eye remained.

“...It’s because of me, isn’t it?”

All eyes turned to Aang. The bags under his eyes were very pronounced, but his gaze looked a bit far away and haunted. He looked up at Azula. “I destroyed Zhao’s entire navy.”

Azula’s eyes hardened but her smile widened just a tad.

“ _ Stop moving! _ ”

Sokka turned to Toph. “No one’s moving.”

Toph pointed at Azula. “ _ She _ is. She’s moving around, I can feel it!”

Sokka glanced back over at Azula, who seemed to be in the exact same position as she had been. No wiggle room. “You sure?”

“You’re asking me if I don’t trust what my feet are  _ telling me?  _ Yes, I’m sure.”

“Stop doing that,” Katara said, addressing Azula.

“Stop doing what?”

“Don’t pretend you don’t know what we’re talking about.”

“You mean… stop doing  _ this? _ ”

Sokka barely had time to cover his face as the rock surrounding Azula suddenly exploded out in a blaze of blue flames. Toph raised a rock wall in front of herself and Sokka while Aang spun his glider to shield himself and Katara.When the rock wall fell, Azula was gone. Toph was turning around, though, and as Sokka wheeled in the other direction he saw Azula shoot a wave of flames at Toph. The earthbender fell back with a yelp and before she could move out of the way or Sokka could pull her to safety, Azula had sent another jet of fire at Toph. There was a cry. Sokka blinked and Toph was holding her feet and cursing like he’d never heard before.

Aang, Katara, and Sokka leaped into action at once. Sokka scooped Toph up as Aang jumped to engage Azula and Katara moved over to try and heal Toph’s feet.

“Stop it, stop it,  _ shit _ ,” Toph swore, kicking at Katara a bit. “Heal later,  _ fight the nutso firebender now! _ ”

Katara nodded to Sokka and moved back to help Aang. 

Unfortunately, that didn’t seem to help very much. 

The universe’s apparent anger at them was only stacking up as Azula seemed to notice just how  _ tired _ they all were and fought with even more aggression and power behind her strikes.

Sokka had no idea how they were going to get out of this one.

Despite all the scenarios he thought up at that moment, though,  _ ribbons _ were not part of any of them.

Of course,  _ that _ was what the universe went with.

Azula’s hand raised up, and his wrist was suddenly entangled in a bright red ribbon. It was pulled taut and she fell to the ground.

“Oops,” a new voice said, “Wrong one.”

Sokka and his friends all turned at once in the direction the voice had come from. Standing there, in the middle of the street, was a boy he had  _ never seen before _ . He had lighter skin than what would have made sense for someone living in the Earth Kingdom towns around here, and wore browns with tints of green. Dark, messy hair framed his face, but Sokka’s gaze was really drawn to the new guy’s left eye, where a scar stretched across half of his face and went all the way back to what looked like his ear.

_ Tui and La, that must have been painful _ .

The other end of the ribbon that had wrapped itself around Azula’s wrist was tangled up in the guy’s hand.

“Wrong one?” Sokka managed to ask. “You mean… you didn’t  _ mean _ to throw a ribbon?”

Ribbon-Guy looked a bit disappointed as he took a small pair of scissors from his waistband and sheared right through the ribbon, leaving some dangling from his hand and the rest dropping to the ground. “No, I didn’t.” He shrugged. “Force of habit, I guess. Anyway-” He turned his gaze up, eyes flickering across each person present- “We should probably go now.”

Sokka was about to ask for answers, but Azula growled from the ground and clenched her fist, so instead he turned to Aang and said, “Appa, please?”

The whistle was blown and the bison descended down just as Azula was starting to get up again. The rocks on the ground had not been a good thing for her, apparently, as she had a few cuts on her face and her hands. Her eyes gleamed.

Sokka clambered onto Appa and leaned down to help the new guy up. They might not know anything about him, but he  _ had _ helped them, and, either way, they couldn’t just leave him to  _ Azula _ .

“Oh, I don’t think so-”

Ribbon-Guy glanced back and made eye contact with Azula as Sokka pulled him up and she  _ faltered _ . Her face fell and something in her gaze cracked as her eyes narrowed just a bit. Her lip trembled slightly as Sokka pulled Ribbon-Guy into the saddle.

“Zuzu?” Azula breathed, furrowing her brow and staring up at Ribbon-Guy.

Ribbon-Guy lost any of the confidence or cheer he had had before as his gaze stayed in the Fire Nation Princess’s. Finally, he cracked a smile and said, “Nice seeing you, LaLa. We should catch up, soon.”

Azula suddenly seemed to remember what was going on again as she snapped out of a funk and sent a plume of fire up toward Katara, sitting with Toph in the back of the saddle. Ribbon-Guy lunged over Sokka and waved his hand to intercept the flames. As the fire disappeared, Toph, her face screwed up in pain, called out, “Hey, Twinkletoes?  _ Get us the hell out of here. _ ”

They were in the air a moment later and, for some reason, Azula didn’t shoot after them. Instead, she just watched them go quietly, and Sokka wasn’t quite sure if that was better or worse.

After a minute in the sky, Sokka had forgotten about their new guest until Ribbon-Guy laughed out loud, looking down at the land flying by below them while wrapping the dangling ribbon he had cut before back around his wrist. He looked up at the rest of them, then, grinning as he spoke. “So, this is what flying’s like? I’ve had to do it for shows before, but that’s with ropes, so I don’t think that really counts. What do you think about it? Do you  _ always _ travel like this?”

Sokka exchanged glances with Katara and was about to speak when Aang piped up from the reins, “Yeah, every day. It’s pretty great, isn’t it?”

“I just can’t believe you can see  _ so much _ from up here. I mean, before three weeks ago, I’d only ever been to three places: Caldera, Shu Jing, and, of course, Ember Island.”

Aang turned back suddenly, his eyes wide. “ _ You’re from Caldera? _ ”

Ribbon-Guy nodded, brow furrowing. “Of course I am.”

Aang’s eyes widened even more, his shoulders tensing just a bit.

“Aang, what’s wrong?” Katara asked.

“Caldera is the capital of the Fire Nation,” Aang replied, his voice strained.

Sokka had rounded on Ribbon-Guy in half-a-second, his club raised.

“Explain,” he said.

Ribbon-Guy blinked and then raised an eyebrow. “Why?”

“ _ You’re Fire Nation! _ ”

“I thought you’d gotten that from when I stopped Azula’s flames.”

“I didn’t-! I wasn’t-!” Sokka sputtered. “It was a stressful situation!”

“You’re telling me. First time I see her in three years and I chuck a  _ ribbon  _ at her?”

“You embarrassed?” Katara asked. “What is she, your girlfriend?”

Ribbon-Guy suddenly looked like he wanted to be sick, but he narrowed his eyes a bit. “Didn’t know the Water Tribe was into incest.”

Toph snorted as Sokka and Katara both reeled back. “What-”

Before Sokka could continue, Toph interrupted him. “She’s his sister, idiot.”

Sokka blinked. “You’re… You’re the  _ Prince of the Fire Nation? _ ”

Ribbon-Guy shrugged. “Depends on your perspective on things. But, yeah, I suppose I still have the title. Prince Zuko of the Fire Nation, at your service.”

Sokka went to speak again, but Toph interrupted him.

“You’re dead.”

Ribbon-Guy (Zuko) blinked and turned to her. “What?”

“You’re dead,” she repeated. 

Zuko looked down at his body and poked himself in the side before looking back up at her. “Well, not when I last checked.”

“My parents are the Beifongs. They get all the reports. You’re dead.”

“Ah,” Zuko nodded. “Yeah, that would be my uncle’s doing. I think it was six months ago, he made up that lie to let me, and I quote, ‘live in peace and love.’” Zuko cracked a smile and shook his head fondly. “I love him, but he needs to work on some of his proverbs.”

“Wait, proverbs?” Aang asked from the front. “You’re… You’re  _ Iroh’s _ nephew, aren’t you?”

Zuko’s grin returned. “Indeed, I am. I believe he told you I would be coming should he not be able to?”

The group all shook their heads as one. Zuko’s smile fell a bit.

“Oh. Huh. Must’ve… missed that bit…” He shook his head. “Still. I’m here now.”

“And… why are you here?” Katara asked.

Zuko was quiet for a moment before turning to Aang. “Avatar, it would be my honor if you would allow me to teach you firebending.”

Aang blinked before grinning. “Sure! You’ve gotta call me Aang, though.”

Zuko cracked a smile, light dancing in his eye. “I can do that.”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Sokka said, raising his hands up. “We’re just gonna  _ accept him _ , just like that?”

“I’ve gotta learn firebending, Sokka,” Aang said. “I never even  _ started  _ with Iroh. He mentioned that one Jeong Jeong guy, but Katara deemed him a bad idea just from the stories Iroh told. Now, we’ve been handed a golden opportunity. You wanna just let him go?”

Sokka went to respond, but then Zuko spoke and drew all attention to him instead. 

“Your feet are burned!”

“Yeah, no shit,” Toph said, her voice flooded with barely-concealed pain.

“I’m doing the best I can, Toph,” Katara said as she worked on healing the earthbender.

“I can probably help,” Zuko said. “Firebenders have a natural resistance to firebenders, but  _ bad _ accidents do happen, and we  _ do _ have a lot of nonbenders, too. Everyone who knows what’s good for them carries at  _ least _ one container of Kaaru Rose burn cream.” The firebender reached into his bag and pulled out a container. He twisted the top off and moved over to where Toph was. Katara pulled the water off of her feet as he approached.

“Be careful,” Toph said. 

“I will. Ready?”

“ _ Let’s get this shitshow on the road _ .”

Zuko dipped his fingers in the cream and applied it to the bottom of Toph’s feet as quickly and carefully as possible. Sokka watched him do it in only thirty seconds flat. 

“Leave your feet elevated, leave that on overnight, we’ll check how it feels in the morning, and then go from there. Hopefully, by then it’ll be healed enough that waterbending healing works for the rest of it.”

As Zuko settled back near Sokka again, they caught each other’s gazes. Sokka realized abruptly that the other was waiting for him to continue arguing about being  _ cautious _ around him. 

Instead, Sokka asked slowly, “How much of that stuff do you have?”

“Uh…” Zuko checked his bag. “Three containers, but I  _ do _ have dried Kaaru petals and preserved seeds, so I could  _ theoretically  _ make more if need be.”

Sokka’s gaze lingered on the scar on Zuko’s face involuntarily before he said, “Cool.”

There was a beat of awkward silence before Aang broke it by yelling out, “Introductions!” He patted Appa on the head and murmured something in the bison’s ear before flipping back (stupid airbending) into the saddle with them. Momo landed on his shoulder.

“I’m Aang, I’m the Avatar, and local animal whisperer!” As if on cue, Momo nipped at his head and Aang tossed him a nut from his pocket, satisfying the lemur easily. “That’s Momo, and the guy we’re riding on is Appa, my flying bison and the best friend in the whole world.”

Aang turned and nodded at Katara, who poked Toph in the side.

“Toph Beifong, resident blind earthbending master.”

Sokka watched Zuko as Toph spoke. He didn’t react at all other than nodding along. 

“Uh, I’m Katara. I’m Aang’s waterbending master, I guess. Uh, I once literally fought sexism.”

Zuko sighed wistfully. “I need that story one day.”

Katara nodded sagely. “I would be happy to provide.”

“I’m Sokka. Katara’s brother, local nonbender, and, uh…”

“The best strategist we’ve ever met!” Aang chimed in. Katara nodded in agreement and Sokka felt a swell of warmth in his chest.

Sokka turned to Zuko. “Your turn.”

Zuko’s face was a tad flushed as he nodded. His hand absentmindedly unravelled the ribbon from around his wrist as he cleared his throat and raised a hand awkwardly for a moment before letting it fall. “Er, hi. I’m Zuko. Banished, not-dead Crown Prince of the Fire Nation, here to teach the Avatar, I mean Aang, firebending, and, er, resident Ember Island Player.”

Sokka didn’t know what the last bit meant, but it seemed important to the guy, so he let it be.

“Nice to meet you, Zuko,” Aang grinned as he hopped back to the reins and started bringing Appa down.

“Welcome aboard,” Sokka nodded, patting the guy on the back. 

Zuko gave another small smile and nodded before his gaze slowly fell back on the fields getting closer and closer. As Katara and Toph started talking about  _ sleep _ (which, yes, Sokka was  _ very excited for _ ), he watched as the newest member of their group wrapped the ribbon back around his wrist again, as if he didn’t even know it was there.

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, you should comment and tell me what you thought.
> 
> That would be nice.
> 
> Until next time!


End file.
